What's happening in Clarington_ An Interview with Clarington's Mayor Adrian Foster and Realtor Jennifer Foley

Jennifer Foley:     Hey guys. Jennifer Foley, your local realtor.  Today, we have an appointment to speak with Mayor Adrian Foster. Let's head inside. 

Jennifer Foley:     I'm here to see the mayor. 

Lindsay:            Just one moment, and I'll call ... You can go right up. 

Jennifer Foley:     I am here with the honorable Mayor Adrian Foster, and what a pleasure. Thank you so much for taking the time to meet with me today. 

Mayor Foster:       Oh, it's my pleasure. This is ... what a neat thing to do, and you talk about live love, and how can you not love Clarington? If you don't live here, you should. 

Jennifer Foley:     That's right. Everybody should live here in Clarington. Let's talk a little bit. Often, I get asked the question from prospective people looking to move to the area, or invest in the area, what the major employment is here, or major sources of revenue for Clarington. 

Mayor Foster:       The biggest thing right now is the nuclear file, with the refurbishment of Darlington Nuclear, and as I've mentioned, that's just shy of $13 billion. If you can think of all of the spinoffs from that, it's huge in the community right now, and will be for 30 years. There's also ... It's interesting ... the potential for new build and a different type of nuclear plant that we're hearing about. That could put Clarington on the map globally for many, many years in the future. The biggest contributor when we don't have something like that going on is actually the agricultural sector. That's the rural roots that we have in Clarington. Another large employer, but as well, a huge economic driver locally, St. Mary Cement is incredibly big. 

Mayor Foster:       Coming up recently is cannabis production, so we've got a number of cannabis producers in town already. We are thinking, in two years' time, they might actually be our second largest employer. 

Jennifer Foley:     Oh, wow. 

Mayor Foster:       Yeah. The next would quite likely be health, if you think, because we got a major rebuild of Bowmanville Memorial Hospital [inaudible 00:01:59] here, so I'm thinking that health is another significant employer in the area. 

Jennifer Foley:     Yeah, excellent. Let's touch a little bit on what the future for Clarington looks like. 

Mayor Foster:       The future looks, I think, an awful lot like the present. We have four of Canada's top 100 infrastructure projects going on here right now, so Darlington Nuclear, that is a $12.8 billion project happening in our back yard. 3,000 additional people showing up every day for that project. Huge. 

Jennifer Foley:     Wow. 

Mayor Foster:       Huge spinoffs to the local business, to the community. The 407-

Jennifer Foley:     Job creation, economic growth-

Mayor Foster:       Job creation, right. You can take a little bit of pride in knowing that when someone flicks a light switch somewhere in the province, that's 20% of the province's electricity comes right from the back door. 

Jennifer Foley:     That's amazing. 

Mayor Foster:       It is. It's such a cool thing. You've got the 407 coming through, so that has just made it into Clarington. You can get to Curtis. That will be fully done by 2020, making it so much easier and quicker to get to Toronto. That's a $1.1 billion project all on its own. Again, happening right now. We've got the Port Hope area initiative, part of a $1.3 billion project, and of course, the GO Train, which is huge. 

Jennifer Foley:     I think everybody's excited about the GO Train. 

Mayor Foster:       Everyone is. 

Jennifer Foley:     Especially, in my line of work. People are looking at accessibility out of the area, and coming back to their place of residence. I think that the GO Train coming to Clarington is going to be a superb, superb thing for the community. 

Mayor Foster:       It is. It's going to be huge. People that want to, if you need to commute to Toronto, or, for that matter, if Toronto wants to commute to Clarington, that has a potential of-

Jennifer Foley:     For our festivals. 

Mayor Foster:       For our festivals. 

Jennifer Foley:     Or our other things.

Mayor Foster:       We actually get a huge number of people out from Toronto. We have the Doors Open campaign where people from Toronto will come out to see the historic houses and historic buildings that are opened up for that. We actually had a lot of people out. There's a Butter Tart Festival. Who knew? About 8,000 people showed up for our Butter Tart Festival. 

Jennifer Foley:     I was there. I know how busy the Butter Tart Festival was. 

Mayor Foster:       It's absolutely awesome. Most of the development that is going on in Durham is happening between Oshawa and Clarington. Our housing prices are amongst the cheapest in the GTR. Our tax rates are the cheapest anywhere in Durham, residential tax rates, so we've got job creation going on, businesses coming. I think people have figured out that Clarington is a really, really good spot, and it's way closer to Toronto than most people expect. 

Jennifer Foley:     Well, thank you so much for meeting with me today, and showcasing Clarington in its positive way as you always do. 

Mayor Foster:       It is such an easy community to showcase in a positive way. 

Jennifer Foley:     It is. 

Mayor Foster:       We live in an awesome spot. 

Jennifer Foley:     It is. Well, thank you so much. 

Mayor Foster:       Thank you.